The Untold Truth Of Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep is often considered the top actress of her time and is incredibly famous in Hollywood. She’s a regular at the Oscars, often sitting in the front row. Streep is famous for both her serious roles, like Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, and her funny ones, like a divorced woman in It’s Complicated. With many outstanding performances in her career, Streep is loved by almost everyone, including other actors.

Meryl Streep is often mentioned alongside big names like Denzel Washington and Leonardo DiCaprio as one of the most famous actors ever. However, The New York Times didn’t include her in their list of the greatest actors of the 21st century. What do you think? But even though she wasn’t on that list, she’s still been recognized in many other places. Besides acting, Streep also balances life as a wife and mom. But her journey hasn’t always been easy, as she’s faced challenges and heartbreak. What’s your favorite Streep performance? And who would you like to see her play next? Get ready for the untold truth of Meryl Streep!

What was Meryl Streep like as a child?

Before Meryl Streep became famous, she was known as Mary Louise Streep. She showed her talent early on while growing up in New Jersey. At just six years old, she impressed her family with a special performance at home. Using a nativity scene and her Betsy Wetsy doll, she acted as the Virgin Mary. Streep felt a powerful connection to acting, describing it as a holy experience. Even at a young age, her performance captivated her family, drawing them into the scene like never before.

Meryl Streep says her family taught her that anything was possible. She recalls feeling excited about all the choices she had when she was 16 years old. Streep believes her parents played a big role in making her feel this way. One of her choices back then was to dye her hair blonde and join the cheerleading squad. She was so popular that she even became the homecoming queen at her high school.

Meryl Streep’s dramatic education

Although Meryl Streep’s first acting gig was at six, she didn’t plan to become an actress at first. After finishing high school, she went to Vassar College with hopes of becoming a lawyer. However, she ended up changing her mind after missing her law school admission test. Instead, she decided to attend Yale Drama School to pursue acting. While studying acting, she worked as a waitress and typist to pay for her education.

While at Yale, Streep took on roles in many theater productions on campus. The New York Times noted that even then, she showed incredible skill in accents and character portrayal. One standout performance was in the musical “The Idiots Karamazov” where she played translator Constance Garnett. According to interviewer Wendy Wasserstein, Streep’s portrayal was captivating, especially when she performed the entire show in a wheelchair wearing Miss Haversham’s wedding dress.

Afterward, the talented actress got involved in various plays in New York City’s renowned Shakespeare in Central Park. Streep joins a list of famous alumni from these outdoor performances, including Anne Hathaway, Morgan Freeman, and James Earl Jones, as mentioned in Playbill.

Meryl Streep’s difficult early acting days

Back when she was a new actress in movies, Meryl Streep got some tips from famous stars, both good and bad. Streep’s first movie role was in “Julia,” where she acted alongside Jane Fonda. Streep noticed Fonda’s sharp focus during scenes. Fonda gave Streep simple but helpful advice about staying on her mark, which was marked by green tape on the floor. Fonda said, “That green tape on the floor. That’s you. That’s your mark. And if you land on it, you will be in the light, and you will be in the movie,” recalled Streep in her biography.

Unfortunately, not all actors treated Streep kindly like Fonda did. In the legal drama “Kramer vs. Kramer,” Streep worked with Dustin Hoffman, who didn’t behave well. Streep told The New York Times that during her first scene in her first movie, Hoffman slapped her, which made her uncomfortable. This wasn’t an isolated incident. In her memoir, Streep mentioned that Hoffman’s behavior bothered the whole cast and crew. He tried to provoke others, like when he broke a wineglass next to her, getting glass in her hair. Streep stayed composed and told him to warn her next time he did something like that.

Meryl Streep’s fight for a cause

It’s tough to imagine a time when organic food wasn’t everywhere in grocery stores. But Meryl Streep was one of the first supporters of organic food without pesticides back in the late ’80s, before it became popular. In an interview, Streep said she wanted to make the world better, so she focused on the issue of pesticides. After talking about it a lot, her friends told her to stop talking and take action. So she reached out to the Natural Resources Defense Council, following a suggestion from her co-star Robert Redford from “Out of Africa.”

When Meryl Streep couldn’t stand the thought of buying food with pesticides anymore, she got her friends who felt the same way together. They worked to make organic foods more available, like they were in Texas and California at the time. Streep admitted that people found environmental issues boring because they take a long time to see results. But as a mother, she felt responsible for protecting the world for her kids. After working on her charitable projects, Streep felt like she had a say in her own and her children’s future, which she didn’t feel before.

A real life, tragic love story with Meryl Streep

While Meryl Streep has portrayed many sad stories on screen, her own love story was just as heartbreaking. She met John Cazale, the love of her life, while acting in Shakespeare in the Park. Sadly, their time together was short because Cazale was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Streep changed her roles to spend more time with him, even joining the cast of The Deer Hunter. She earned her first Oscar nomination for her role in the film. Streep stayed by Cazale’s side as he battled his illness until the end.

According to Michael Schulman’s biography, “Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep” (via Vulture), in 1978, Meryl Streep stayed with John Cazale as he was dying. Reportedly, she cried and pounded on his chest until he told her it was okay, just before he passed away.

Before Cazale died, Streep accepted a lead role in the TV series Holocaust to help with his medical bills. Shortly after his death, she won an Emmy for her role in the show.

Who is Meryl Streep married to?

Just like the saying goes, when something bad happens, something good can follow. This is exactly what happened in Meryl Streep’s love life. After her boyfriend and co-star from “The Deer Hunter,” John Cazale, passed away from lung cancer in 1978, Streep was reportedly asked to leave the apartment they lived in together, according to Oprah Magazine.

During a tough time, Meryl Streep’s brother Harry brought along his friend Don Gummer. That friend happened to be Don Gummer, a well-known sculptor from America. Streep and Gummer hit it off right away, and about six months later, they tied the knot in September 1978, right in her parents’ garden. Interestingly, both Streep and Gummer had attended Yale University.

Even though Don Gummer isn’t as famous as Streep, he’s really significant in her life. She made sure to express her gratitude to him during her 2012 Oscar speech. Streep said, “First, I’m going to thank Don because when you thank your husband at the end of the speech, they play him out with the music, and I want him to know that everything I value most in our lives, you’ve given me.”

Meryl Streep has a full family life

Besides being one of the most famous actresses globally, Meryl Streep is also a mom. She and her husband, sculptor Don Gummer, have four kids together. According to Oprah Magazine, all of them have taken after their parents’ creative paths. Henry Wolfe, the oldest, is a musician who chose not to use his last name for his music career. Mamie, the next in line, and Grace, two years younger, both pursued acting, just like their mom. The youngest, Louisa, is into modeling and also has a passion for acting, as reported by Oprah Magazine.

“In an interview for Working Mother, Streep shared that she encouraged her kids to chase their own dreams but insisted they have a backup plan. She credited her husband, Gummer, for supporting her in raising their children, which made it easier for her to take on acting roles. Streep confessed that she picked films that wouldn’t keep her away from her family for more than two weeks because she missed them a lot and would feel miserable without them.”

Streep is thankful that her acting career gave her more time with her children compared to a regular job. However, she joked with NPR that usually, her husband and kids aren’t too happy about the movies taking her away.

Meryl Streep keeps adding to her accolades

Meryl Streep has an impressive history at award shows that even longtime fans might find surprising. In 2018, she set a new record for the most Oscar nominations ever with 21 in total. Then, just a year later, she broke her own record at the Golden Globes, earning a total of 34 nominations. At the 2010 Golden Globes, Streep even competed against herself in the Best Actress category, where her role in Julie & Julia won over her performance in the romantic comedy It’s Complicated.

In 2010, Meryl Streep received a special honor from President Obama: the National Medal of Arts. She was recognized for her remarkable contributions to American art and culture as an actress on stage and screen.

Despite winning numerous awards throughout her career, one of Streep’s earliest victories didn’t hold much significance at the time. She won her first Emmy shortly after her boyfriend, John Cazale, passed away. Streep didn’t attend the ceremony; instead, she received her award in a box. She later admitted that, at the time, she didn’t see it as a big deal and just placed it with her other belongings.

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The Untold Truth Of Meryl Streep
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BY BRIAN YOST/UPDATED: JAN. 25, 2022 2:53 PM EST
Perhaps the actress of her generation, Meryl Streep may also be the most popular actress in Hollywood. So much so that she sits “in the front row at the Oscars nearly every single year,” per Vanity Fair. Streep is known just as much for her dramatic roles — like the devilish Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada — as her comedic roles — like a divorcée in It’s Complicated. With a career full of masterful performances on her résumé, as ranked by Vulture, Streep is beloved by pretty much everyone, including her peers.

This actress comes to mind alongside Denzel Washington and Leonardo DiCaprio as the most famous actors ever. And yet, The New York Times left out Streep in its roundup of the greatest actors of the 21st century. Do you agree? But this doesn’t diminish the recognition she’s received elsewhere. Outside of film and television, the multitalented Streep plays her part as a wife and mom. But her life hasn’t always been simply glitz and glamor as she’s dealt with setbacks and heartbreaking tragedies.

What’s your favorite performance by Streep? And who would you like to see her play next? Grab your popcorn because it’s time for the untold truth of Meryl Streep.

What was Meryl Streep like as a child?
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Meryl Streep’s birth name is actually Mary Louise Streep. Even before the famous Meryl came to be, the younger Streep was a star in the making. While growing up in New Jersey, the young girl delivered her first great performance as a six-year-old — at home. Surrounded by a nativity scene, Streep played the part of the Virgin Mary while “cradling her Betsy Wetsy doll,” Vulture reported. And the much more experienced Streep reflected on the power she felt because of acting. “I felt quieted, holy, actually, and my transfigured face and very changed demeanor captured on Super-8 by my dad pulled my little brothers … into a trance,” the actress remembered in her biography, Her Again (via Vulture). “They were actually pulled into this little nativity scene by the intensity of my focus, in a way that my usual technique for getting them to do what I want, yelling at them, never ever would have achieved,” she added.

Streep credits her family for instilling in her a sense of endless possibilities. “I remember what I was like at 16 — how incredibly vast and exciting the choices were,” Streep told Interview. “My parents, I think, had a lot to do with making me feel that way,” she added. Two of those choices were to “bleach her hair platinum blond and become a cheerleader,” according to Vanity Fair. And her peers liked her so much that Streep became the high school homecoming queen.

Meryl Streep’s dramatic education
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Though she considers her first acting performance as a six-year-old, Meryl Streep didn’t initially pursue a career as an actress. After high school, Streep attended Vassar College to pursue a career in law. But Streep, “after sleeping through her L.S.A.T., decided to ditch law school for Yale Drama School,” according to Vanity Fair. While in school to pursue a career in acting, Streep reportedly “paid her way through school by waitressing and typing,” per Vulture.

At Yale, Streep began to star in several campus stage productions. “Even at that early stage, it was evident that Ms. Streep had a virtuosic command of accents as well as characters,” The New York Times reported. One of her most memorable performances was as “translator Constance Garnett in the musical The Idiots Karamazov.” Interviewer Wendy Wasserstein remembered seeing Streep at Yale in this performance. “Meryl took stage for the entire performance in a wheelchair, dressed in Miss Haversham’s wedding gown,” she explained, via Interview. And recalled that Streep “was riveting and unforgettable.”

A few years later, the stunning young actress joined several productions in New York City at the famous Shakespeare in Central Park. Streep is among other notable alumni of the open-air performances, like Anne Hathaway, Morgan Freeman, and James Earl Jones, per Playbill.

Meryl Streep’s difficult early acting days
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Once an inexperienced movie actress, Meryl Streep picked up pointers — both good and bad — from a few famous celebrities. As Streep explained in her biography, Her Again (via Vulture), her first role was in the movie Julia, which starred actress, model, and fitness queen Jane Fonda. Streep remembered that all of her scenes were alongside Fonda, who had a “feral alertness.” And she recalled the simple but effective advice given to her by Fonda during a scene. “That green tape on the floor. That’s you. That’s your mark. And if you land on it, you will be in the light, and you will be in the movie,” Fonda reportedly told Streep.

Sadly, not all actors were as nice to Streep as Fonda. For example, the time she starred alongside Dustin Hoffman in the legal drama Kramer vs. Kramer. Talking about Hoffman to The New York Times, Streep claimed, “it was my first take in my first movie, and he just slapped me. And you see it in the movie. It was overstepping.” And this wasn’t a one-off situation. According to the starlet’s memoir (via Vulture), “Hoffman apparently drove the entire cast and crew crazy.” Reportedly, he also tried to manipulate and provoke several of the actors on set. For example, he apparently once “shattered a wineglass next to her, and shards of glass got into Streep’s hair.” Streep remembered keeping a calm demeanor and said, “Next time you do that, I’d appreciate you letting me know.”

Meryl Streep’s fight for a cause
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It’s hard to remember a time when organic food was not a part of every grocery store. But Meryl Streep was an early champion for organic food without pesticides back in the late ’80s, long before the concept became mainstream. As she told Interview, Streep hoped to make the world better, “So I’ve picked pesticides, and that’s my thing.” After “barking” about the issues that bothered Streep, her friends apparently told the actress, “‘Why don’t you shut up and do something about it?’ So I called the people at the Natural Resources Defense Council,” thanks to the recommendation by her Out of Africa co-star Robert Redford.

After she could no longer put up with the idea of buying food with pesticides, Streep rounded up her like-minded friends. Together, the group pushed for organic foods to be available, similar to Texas and California at the time. Streep confessed that “environmental issues are considered very boring. They don’t capture anyone’s attention, because they’re just so long-term, really long and drawn out.” But as a mother, she also felt a duty to protect the world for her offspring. And after pursuing her philanthropic missions, Streep felt “as if I have my hands on my future and my children’s future, which I didn’t feel before.”

A real life, tragic love story with Meryl Streep
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On-screen, Meryl Streep has played the role of nearly every possible form of tragedy. But her real-life love story is as heartbreaking as any script could read. During her time in Shakespeare in the Park, Streep met the love of her life. She and John Cazale were both actors in the play Measure for Measure. “Their romance would be brief, interrupted by Cazale’s diagnosis of terminal lung cancer,” Vulture explained. Due to his health status, Streep adjusted her choice of roles. For example, she reportedly signed on to The Deer Hunter “so that she could be with him on set.” But being Streep, she also picked up her first Oscar nomination for her performance in the movie. As Cazale’s health deteriorated, “Streep remained by his side as an unconditional caregiver during the last years of his life.”

According to Michael Schulman’s biography, Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep (via Vulture), the actress stayed by Cazale’s side in 1978 as he lay dying. Reportedly, Streep “pounded on his chest, sobbing,” until Cazale told her, “it’s all right,” before passing away.

Prior to Cazale’s death, Streep apparently accepted a lead role in the tv series Holocaust, to help pay for his medical expenses. And soon after Cazale passed away, Streep “won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series” for her performance.

Who is Meryl Streep married to?
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As the saying goes, when one door closes, another one opens. This directly applies to the down-then-up story of Meryl Streep’s real-life love story. After her “then boyfriend and Deer Hunter co-star John Cazale, who died of lung cancer in 1978,” Streep was apparently kicked out of the apartment the two shared, Oprah Magazine reported.

At one of her lowest points, Streep’s “brother Harry arrived with his friend Don in tow.” That was Don Gummer, a famous American sculptor. He and Streep must have made an almost instant connection because about six months later, the two “were married in the garden of her parents’ home in September 1978.” It turns out the pair had the same alma mater, Yale University.

Though Gummer is far from the high-profile celebrity of Streep, he still plays an important role in her life. And the actress made sure to let the world know what he meant to her during a 2012 Oscar speech. “First, I’m going to thank Don because when you thank your husband at the end of the speech, they play him out with the music, and I want him to know that everything I value most in our lives, you’ve given me,” Streep told the audience.

Meryl Streep has a full family life
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As if being one of the most recognizable and famous actresses in the world isn’t enough responsibility, Meryl Streep is also a mother. She and husband — sculptor Don Gummer — have four children together, “all of whom have followed in mom and dad’s creative footsteps,” via Oprah Magazine. Henry Wolfe, the oldest, is a musician who purposefully dropped his last name as a recording artist. Mamie, the next oldest, and Grace, two years her minor, both pursued acting just like their mother. And Louisa, the youngest of the bunch, “is a model with the acting bug,” Oprah Magazine reported.

“I wanted them to follow their own dreams but I did ask them to have a plan B. They made their own way,” Streep confessed in an interview for Working Mother. The famous actress added that having Gummer by her side to help raise the children allowed her to accept roles more easily. But she also admitted, “I was also careful to choose films that didn’t take me away from my family for more than two weeks at a time because I missed them terribly and I would be miserable without them.”

Ultimately, Streep remains grateful that her career path afforded her more time to spend with her children as opposed to working a more traditional job. Though Streep joked with NPR that normally, Gummer and the kids are usually “resentful of movies that I go off and make.”

Meryl Streep reveals the truth behind The Devil Wears Prada
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Though not technically an Oscar-worthy performance, Meryl Streep’s role as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada may be one of her most memorable. Prior to filming, Streep looked for inspiration to play the role of a media magnate. For a commanding presence, she modeled the voice of her character after the legendary Clint Eastwood. According to Streep, Eastwood “never, ever, ever raises his voice,” which “instead forces everyone to listen intently to him,” per Vanity Fair. On the first day of filming, Streep’s co-stars were expecting Streep to enter as a bombastic boss with “a strident, bossy, barking voice. So when Meryl opened her mouth and basically whispered, everybody in the room drew a collective gasp. It was so unexpected and brilliant,” Anne Hathaway remembered to Vanity Fair.

Streep’s character is rumored to be representing Anna Wintour, the American Vogue editor-in-chief. And “several fashion brands refused to appear” in the movie “to avoid displeasing Anna Wintour,” according to Vogue. But Streep made light of the matter during an interview with Wintour. When the editor asked the actress who was the most challenging woman she ever played, Streep said, “Oh, I should say…” before trailing off. Wintour interjected and said, “No, no, we’re not going there, Meryl.” The actress didn’t skip a beat and confessed, “that wasn’t anyway, that was fun.”

Meryl Streep and the sound of music
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It seems almost unfair that Meryl Streep can be good at other things outside of acting. And yet, the multitalented woman also knows how to show off her vocal skills. For example, she’s lent her musical voice to the movies Ricki and the Flash, Postcards from the Edge, and two Mamma Mia! movies. In her teens, Streep became interested in music, specifically, a young Barbra Streisand. Streep remembered her father collected all of Streisand’s records, “and I knew every single song, every breath, every elision, every swell,” she told NPR. In addition to just having something to sing along to, it helped Streep “express something that I had no other way of expressing.” Streep later met Streisand, who “was nonplussed” by the story of Streep’s childhood admiration for the singer.

In the film Florence Foster Jenkins, Streep played “an eccentric 1940s socialite who pursues her dream to perform at Carnegie Hall, despite having a terrible voice,” Vanity Fair recapped. The movie’s director, Stephen Frears, decided to let Streep sing live for her scenes. According to Frears, he was impressed by Streep’s musical abilities and added, “you can only sing that badly if you can sing that well.”

As for the actress, she also enjoyed the opportunity to step outside of her acting comfort zone. “It was way, way more fun, but it was more terrifying,” she said at a press conference for the movie.

Meryl Streep keeps adding to her accolades
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Meryl Streep’s award show resume is big enough to surprise even long-time fans. In 2018, Streep broke her own record to hold the most Oscar nominations in the award show’s history — 21 in total — via Time. Then one year later, she once again broke her own record to hold the most nominations ever. This time, at the Golden Globes Awards, which brought her overall total to 34 nominations, per People. Perhaps even more impressive at the Golden Globes, Streep went up against herself in the Best Actress category at the 2010 award ceremony. Streep in Julie & Julia beat out Streep in the romantic comedy It’s Complicated, via Golden Globes.

Adding to her mantle of awards, she received a prestigious civilian award in 2010. President Obama awarded Streep the National Medal of Arts for her unrivaled “contributions to American art and culture as an actress of the stage and screen.”

For all the awards Streep has collected throughout her career, one of her first wins hardly mattered at the time. Her first Emmy win came soon after the death of her boyfriend, John Cazale. Streep skipped the ceremony and instead received her golden statue in a box. According to Vulture, the actress “placed it with the rest of her things. At the time she said, ‘I wish I could assign some great importance to it,’ but that it had ‘no lasting power.'”

The French connection to Meryl Streep
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As one of the most beloved actresses in America, Meryl Streep has a surprisingly strong link with another country: France. The actress’ breakout role came in the 1981 romance The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Her starring role as a British actress in a film-within-a-film earned her an Oscar nomination and a win at the Golden Globes, via The Guardian. Almost 30 years later — a testament to her career longevity — Streep starred in the film Julie & Julia as famous chef Julia Child. The real-life chef was also an author, known for her books Mastering the Art of French Cooking and My Life in France, which partly inspired the film with Streep, according to the film’s website.

In 2003, France recognized the actress with its highest artistic honor. The country’s minister of culture at the time “named Streep a commander of the order of arts and letters, praising her ‘courage, delicacy, sensitivity and determination’ and saying she’s been a star in France since 1985’s Out of Africa,” The Age reported. In her acceptance speech for the award, Streep reportedly “thanked her fans in both French and English.” Streep also “won an honorary Cesar, France’s equivalent of an Oscar,” while in France. “I’m grateful that the French public welcomed these complex and contradictory women,” the actress said in French after receiving a standing ovation.

How much is Meryl Streep worth?

Meryl Streep has been a powerhouse in Hollywood for over four decades, and her success is undeniable. She’s not just known for her acting skills but also for her principles. For instance, she refuses to accept payment for wearing designer gowns on the red carpet, even though top fashion houses like Chanel offer her free dresses. However, she earns a hefty sum for her acting roles. As of now, her net worth stands at $160 million, making her one of the highest-paid actresses, according to Forbes.

Streep’s real estate holdings are as impressive as her movie credits. With her substantial wealth, she can afford luxurious homes. In 2017, she and her husband, Don Gummer, bought a 3,000 square foot “mid-century modern” house in Pasadena, California, for $3.6 million. This purchase was relatively modest compared to their other property on the opposite coast. In 2019, Streep listed her Tribeca penthouse for sale at $18.3 million. The 4,000 square foot penthouse featured four bedrooms, five bathrooms, and a spacious terrace.

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